


This Is the Day

by bjfic_archivist



Category: Queer as Folk (US)
Genre: Angst, Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-10-06
Updated: 2005-10-06
Packaged: 2018-12-27 09:36:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 646
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12078423
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bjfic_archivist/pseuds/bjfic_archivist
Summary: Justin's gone, and. Justin's actually gone.





	This Is the Day

**Author's Note:**

> Note from IrishCaelan, the archivist: this story was originally archived at [The Brian/Justin Fanfiction Archive](http://fanlore.org/wiki/Brian_Justin_Fanfiction_Archive). To preserve the archive, I began importing its works to the AO3 as an Open Doors-approved project in September 2017. I posted announcements, but may not have reached everyone. If you are (or know) this creator, please contact me using the e-mail address on [The Brian/Justin Fanfiction Archive collection profile](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/bjfic/profile).

_well, you didn't wake up this morning because you didn't go to bed  
you were watching the whites of your eyes turn red_

Brian stands at the window completely naked, save for the long-out butt hanging from his lips and the unlit cigarette forgotten in his right hand. He fingers the shells on his bracelet absently then takes it off and throws it out the window. He has no compulsion to follow it, however, and he recognises through his drunken haze that he'll probably want it back in the morning. _Justin had returned it, and he'd tied on his wrist, and really, that had been the end of Ethan right there..._ He picks up the bottle of Jack from the windowsill and tips the last of it down his throat, he'd enjoy the burn if he were sober enough to feel it. He's not. Justin's gone, and. Justin's really gone.

It's 5:30 am, that's what the clock would say if Brian could make out its numbers, but he can't. He could when he kicked Michael out at four, and he'd literally had to kick him out, as Mikey had been reluctant to go. "Brian, you should let me stay tonight," he'd pleaded, "you're just going to come over in the morning and wake us up anyway." Brian had determined at that moment that he would do no such thing, not the next morning and perhaps never again. He'd shoved Mikey out into the hall and forcibly pulled the door to in his face.

Then he'd attempted to sleep, but he couldn't sleep in his bed. Nor on any of the couches.

He thinks he'll have to sell the loft.

Brian walks purposefully (because Brian Kinney does not wander aimlessly, regardless of how drunk he may be) over to the dresser where Justin'd set the box back down. _"You know we don't need rings, Brian..."_ He palms them in his left fist and walks into the bathroom rather than back over to the window. He will not throw a $5,000 set of platinum bands out of the window. Nor will he return them, which he knows, and Justin knows. He'd say probably not ever, but the probably would be unnecessary.

Brian is quiet. Brian has been quiet for hours. It's quiet in the loft, and out on the street, but not for long -- people will be on their way to work soon. Brian is going to call in sick. When he does so, he'll discover that Cynthia has already written him off for the rest of the week, and he'll be outraged and then oblige. Brian squeezes his left hand into the tightest fist imaginable and wills Justin's face beside his own to leave the mirror. _Justin looked even younger in the glass, like a fifteen year old with shaving cream on his face was telling him what to do about his own son._

He stares into the mirror, he counts the wrinkles and considers Botox, he counts the grey hairs and considers a colorist, he wants to deem them all reasons for Justin's departure, but he knows it's simply not true. He stares into his own eyes, skin puffy and whites shot through with red. He sets the rings down on the sink, then changes his mind, picks them up and takes them back to the box. He puts them in and then tucks the bright blue into a drawer he never goes into, the one that also contains the crumpled sketch of Rage Justin'd left behind when he'd gone to Ethan, and an expired bottle of allergy medication Justin'd left behind when he'd gone to California, and a few other bits and ends, oil pencils and lost drawstrings.

Brian pulls a dusty blanket and pillow still in plastic from his linen closet, lies down in the center of the hardwood floor, and sleeps.


End file.
